Vietnamese crew of vessel suspected of smuggling rice to be sent home

LEGAZPI CITY, Philippines  – The 16 crew members of a Vietnamese ship suspected of smuggling rice into the country face repatriation if they fail to produce the necessary documents, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) in Bicol said yesterday.

Josephus Ojano of BI-Bicol said a hearing is set this week to be presided by Bureau of Customs (BOC) officials to finalize whether the Vietnamese crew members, including the captain of M/V Minh Tuan 68, will be repatriated or not.

“We will not use the term deportation because they did not intend to work or reside in our country. They were merely on-board their ship with cargo and did not comply with our requirements,” Ojano told The STAR.

Ojano said the BOC had turned over the seaman’s books of the 16 Vietnamese crew members for safekeeping.

“The confiscation of their seaman’s books is also a precautionary measure to ensure that they will not escape from our custody,” he said.

Yoly Navarro, National Food Authority-Albay manager, said they are still waiting for the memorandum of undertaking between the consignees and the NFA.

“We are waiting for the documents required by BOC to be transmitted by our main office (NFA) so that we could unload the cargo,” Navarro said.

However, Joy Villegas, spokesperson for the Philippine Coast Guard in Bicol, said that even ship officials could produce the importation documents, the PCG would not release the ship. 

Villegas said the government inspection team discovered at least 10 violations of the Marine Pollution 7378 convention that warrant the ship’s continued detention.

“The crew need to comply or correct the same before we could release them,” Villegas said.

Villegas said a joint team of PCG and BOC personnel is tightly guarding the ship.

The ship was carrying 94,000 bags of rice worth P112.8 million.